by Lucy Gordon
And now it was there—the rush of intoxicating joy, the glorious freedom that she’d awaited in vain during the dive. It had come at last, possessing her as she hurtled confidently towards the arms that waited to enfold her.
‘You really mean it?’ he said, later that night.
They were curled up in their own bed, warm with satiated desire, and warmer still with the comfort of opening their minds and hearts to each other in a way that was new.
‘I mean every word,’ she assured him. ‘I’m finished with all that. No more diving, jumping and suchlike.’
‘You don’t have to give it up now if you’re not sure. I’ll wait until you’re ready.’
‘I am ready. I knew that today.’
‘I guess that would be about the time you were blown off course?’ he said, trying to make a joke of it.
‘No, it was when I landed and ran to you. I couldn’t see you, but I knew you were running to me, and we’d find each other. And then I knew I didn’t need anything more.’
After that there was a long silence as they held each other, not even kissing but absorbing warmth and comfort from each other’s presence
‘Always?’ he murmured.
‘Always.’
After a while he ventured to ask,
‘Does that mean—no more craziness?’
‘I didn’t actually say that,’ she said hastily. ‘But there’s more than one way of being crazy.’
‘Well, I guess if you were sensible all the time I wouldn’t know you.’
‘Mum and Dad used to take risks,’ she remembered. ‘But they stopped when I was born. After that Dad took up sending messages into other galaxies.’
‘Does he get anything back?’ he asked, startled.
‘Only stuff he can’t understand. He’ll tell you all about it when he comes for the wedding.’
He kissed her. ‘What did your mother take up?’
‘Me. She said I was mad enough for both of us. I’ll probably find the same.’
‘Are you telling me—’
‘Be patient.’
Just as she thought he’d gone to sleep he murmured, ‘I’m glad it happened this way.’
‘Glad we quarrelled?’ she asked.
‘Glad we quarrelled, parted and found each other again.’
‘Could it actually have been a good thing that I told you to get out?’ she wondered, and held her breath, for the answer was important.
‘Yes, or I might never have learned to confront it. You dispelled that darkness as nobody else could. And since then we’ve learned things about each other, and ourselves, that we needed to know.’
And solving problems was what would keep them together, she thought, glad of his wisdom.
But there was one more step before his darkness was finally banished, she thought. One more thing that only she could do.
‘So now the door’s open for us,’ she said. ‘The one that leads to the rest of our lives. Come in, my darling. Come in.’
Della had said that Hope’s life was colourful enough to throw the other women into the shade, and it was true. She’d loved and been loved by several men, and had mothered six sons—four of them her own, two by other women. All of them looked to her as their mother.
It had been her dream to surround herself with daughters-in-law, and although the wedding of Francesco and Celia was still in the future she considered the dream fulfilled. On this day that she would share with her husband—the man who had always been her true love, even while she herself had only half known it—they would be surrounded by the children and the grandchildren they considered theirs.
Every member of the family who could manage it had travelled to Naples. Some stayed at the villa; some took rooms in nearby hotels. The celebrations had already lasted several days, as Hope had given a series of small parties so that she and Toni could spend time with everyone.
‘The big party, with everyone, will be a crush,’ she had told her husband. ‘So packed that there will be no time for words except for speeches, which aren’t the same.’
She had been right, but now the time had come she found that no words were needed. As she stood looking around the garden, where dinner was being served under coloured lamps, she saw that all her sons were there, and all the women who loved them. Beside them were their children—some fast-growing, some babies, but all providing the promise of plentiful activity, the wellspring of her life.
By now everyone knew what had happened at the hospital, and they looked at the couple walking among them with new eyes. Both were in their late sixties, together for thirty-five years, yet now they had the glow of young lovers.
There they stood, arms entwined, while the speeches proceeded and the toasts were drunk.
‘And I’ll swear, they never heard a word of it,’ Carlo said later. ‘They were in their own world and nobody else existed.’
‘Did you see Franco there at all?’ Della asked.
‘No, he was the only person who didn’t accept.’
Later that night, in the privacy of their room, Toni read again the letter his brother had written.
I know you will understand why I cannot be there. I rejoice with you, but I’m still learning to cope with my own loss. I’m going away for a while, to Switzerland, where Lisa and I went on our honeymoon. I shall revisit the places of our first happiness, and I like to think she will be there with me, as she will always be in my heart.
Toni looked up, smiling, as his wife came and rested an arm about his shoulder.
‘Do you remember how we planned our honeymoon?’ she asked, glancing at the letter which, like Toni, she had read many times before.
‘Yes, and we never took that trip,’ he remembered. ‘Luke got the flu, and then Francesco caught it from him—’
‘And then I caught it, and you nursed me so tenderly,’ she recalled with a smile.
She put her other arm about him and kissed him.
‘I think it’s time we took that trip, carissimo,’ she said. ‘We’ve waited far too long.’
ISBN: 978-1-4268-0985-9
THE MILLIONAIRE TYCOON’S ENGLISH ROSE
First North American Publication 2007.
Copyright © 2007 by Lucy Gordon.
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